1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a stereoscopic image processing apparatus and a stereoscopic image processing method capable of displaying display data for allowing a viewer to perceive a stereoscopic image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a stereoscopic image technology that provides two images having horizontal parallax (binocular parallax) on a display so that a viewer may perceive the displayed images as a stereoscopic image of a subject has been highlighted. The two images used in the above technology are images captured from different optical axes (viewpoints), or images of computer graphics (CGs) corresponding to images captured at different optical axes. A location where the subject image included in the two images in a perspective direction is formed is determined according to a degree of parallax between the two images of the subject image.
As described above, although the image forming location of the subject image in the perspective direction may be changed by adjusting the parallax between the two images of the subject, if the subject image is formed to excessively protrude or to excessively be recessed by having the parallax too large, the viewer may feel fatigue. Therefore, there is provided a technology of automatically adjusting the parallax to be a desired value by detecting a face of a predetermined person in two pieces of data of the two images and deriving parallax of the face, and then moving the subject image in one piece of the data of the two images horizontally if the derived parallax is not equal to the desired value (for example, Patent Reference 1).
When two images for allowing a viewer to perceive a stereoscopic image are generally manufactured, a manufacturer (operator) generates image data of each of scenes by taking pictures or manufacturing CGs, and after that, connects image data of every scene to each other. In addition, scenes are formed by partitioning, for example, an operation performed in a predetermined place at predetermined time intervals.
Here, if the technology disclosed in Patent Reference 1 is used, parallax may be adjusted in every scene; however, the manufacturer cannot grasp a degree of parallax quantitatively. Also, if parallax is set simply to a desired value by using the technology disclosed in Patent Reference 1, an amount of protrusion or recession of a subject image may be reduced to the desired value, and thus the image may become flat.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2010-147940